Thursday, April 24, 2014

The pasuk says at the beginning of Parshas
Kedoshim, “דַּבֵּר
אֶל כָּל עֲדַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאָמַרְתָּ אֲלֵהֶם קְדשִׁים תִּהְיוּ”
“Speak to the entire congregation of the Children of Yisrael and you shall
say to them, ‘You shall be holy” (Vayikra 19:2). This is the theme of the
entire parshah; every one of the many mitzvos listed in this parshah is
connected to the idea of the nation of Yisrael acting in a holy manner.

The very next pasuk says, “אִישׁ אִמּוֹ וְאָבִיו תִּירָאוּ וְאֶת שַׁבְּתֹתַי תִּשְׁמֹרוּ
אֲנִי יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם…”
“Every man should fear his mother and his father, and you should observe my Sabbaths.
I am Hashem, your God” (19:3). Rashi asks, what is the connection between
these two mitzvos? He explains that the pasuk is teaching you that the
obligation to honor and respect your parents only goes as far as what the Torah
allows you to do. If your parent tells you to go against the Torah, for
example, to desecrate the Shabbos, you are not obligated to listen. In fact,
the pasuk is saying even more than that, you are obligated not to
listen.

The Kli Yakar asks the obvious question
that comes out from this: why does the Torah use Shabbos as an example of when
to not listen to your parents more than any other mitzvah? He explains that
both Shabbos and Kibbud Av V’Eim have the same purpose behind them, to make
sure a person recognizes where they came from. The reason we are obligated to respect
and honor our parents is because we must be grateful to them for bringing us
into this world and everything that comes with that. When we keep Shabbos, we
are showing our recognition that we believe in Hashem as the creator of the
world. He created everything and everyone, including you and your
parents. Before you recognize anything your parents did for you, you must
recognize He who did for them, Hashem. Though our obligation to Hashem
is the same with any other mitzvah, due to this similarity, Shabbos is the best
example to use when discussing our obligation to parents.

Monday, April 14, 2014

There is no question that the highlight
of the holiday of Pesach is the Seder, and the highlight of the Seder is the
section of Maggid, where we tell over the story of Yetzias Mitzrayim through
stories, drashos, and songs. The Hagadah is unique in many aspects, yet we
still take many of its components at face value without searching for a deeper
understanding. For this reason, I like to focus the Divrei Torah for Pesach on
different sections of the Hagadah and try to get a better understanding of those
parts. This year, I would like to discuss the introductory paragraph to Maggid,
“Ha Lachma Anya”.

“Ha Lachma Anya” reads, “הָא לַחְמָא עַנְיָא דִי אֲכָלוּ
אַבְהָתָנָא בְּאַרְעָא דְמִצְרָיִם. כָּל דִכְפִין יֵיתֵי וְיֵיכֹל, כָּל
דִצְרִיךְ יֵיתֵי וְיִפְסַח. הָשַׁתָּא הָכָא, לְשָׁנָה הַבָּאָה בְּאַרְעָא
דְיִשְׂרָאֵל. הָשַׁתָּא עַבְדֵי, לְשָׁנָה הַבָּאָה בְּנֵי חוֹרִין”
“This is the poor-man’s bread that our forefathers ate in the land of Egypt.
Whoever is hungry may come and eat. Anyone who needs may come and eat the
Pesach with us. Now we are here, next year we will be in the Land of Israel. This
year we are slaves, next year we will be free men.” This paragraph appears
to be an invitation to anyone who wants to come to our Seder and partake in our
Korban Pesach (at the time when it was applicable), join our discussion of
Yetzias Mitzrayim, or simply just to eat, to come and join us.

Two questions came to me while reading
this. First, if this is an invitation, why are we inviting people now
after we have already made Kiddush and begun the Seder, shouldn’t we invite
them before we begin? Secondly, and more obviously, this is really not much of
an invitation. By the time we extend this invitation, everyone hopefully has a
Seder to attend, and if someone did show up at our door, I can’t imagine that
we would let them in!

(As a side point to further strengthen
this question, the paragraph mentions that we are inviting anyone to join us in
the Korban Pesach. When the Beis Hamikdash stood and we had a Korban Pesach,
you could not just join a group whenever you wanted, the group had to be formed
before the korban was brought on the mizbe’ach! So by this point in the
process, a person couldn’t join our Seder if they wanted to partake in our
korban Pesach!)

In the classic Jewish tradition, I would
like to begin my answer with another question. “Ha Lachma Anya” begins by
showing everyone a piece of Matzah and then inviting them to the Seder. What’s
the big draw we are using to bring everyone to the Seder, a piece of Matzah. So
essentially we are inviting everyone to a Matzah party! What type of meal is
that? No one would accept an invitation to a meal where the food the host was
showcasing was a giant, dry cracker! What is the connection between the Matzah and
extending an open invitation to the Seder?

The commentaries on the Hagadah all
discuss the doubling of each sentence in “Ha Lachma Anya”, this year we’re slaves,
next year we’ll be free, etc. Even though the first line where we showcase the Matzah
does not seem to be included in this pattern, in fact it is. We might think we
are still in Galus, we are still eating poor man’s bread, that we have nothing
to show from the fact that we left Mitzrayim. But in fact, that is not true at
all! All the shefa and brachah and kedushah that we have from the
mitzvah of Korban Pesach (and the other mitzvos that followed it) comes from
the fact that we left Mitzrayim! When we left Mitzrayim and became the nation
of Hashem, Hashem infused us with a kedushah that is everlasting and that we
constantly replenish with the constant remembrance of leaving Mitzrayim, which the
main focus of comes on Seder night. All this is represented by the Matzah we
hold up to show everyone. The Matzah that bridged our years of slavery with our
newfound freedom and kedushah.

So when we give this invitation at the
beginning of the Seder, we aren’t inviting people from the outside, though they
are certainly welcome, we are inviting the people who are there with us! We are
urging everyone present to be a part of the Seder; to share a Torah thought, a
meal, a song, to accept the kedushah that comes with us having left Mitzrayim.
It’s not an invitation as much as a pep talk for what’s to come. That’s why
this invitation is given even when we don’t expect anyone to come and
that’s why it’s placed here as opposed to before Kiddush. It’s not
simply about inviting everyone to a meal and a celebration, it’s about inviting
people to the Seder, inviting them to leave Mitzrayim with us and join
us on the journey to becoming the Am Hashem and all that it entails.

The Hagadah tells us that each person is
obligated to imagine themselves as if they came out of Mitzrayim just this
year. How is this possible? One way to begin is to understand what Yetzias
Mitzrayim meant for us and how it is all represented by the Matzah we hold up
at the beginning of Maggid when we say “Ha Lachma Anya”.

Friday, April 4, 2014

Last week’s parshah began the topic of a
metzora, someone who has been smitten with tzara’as. The discussion of this
topic is concluded in this week’s parshah, fittingly named, Parshas Metzora. In
last week’s Dvar Torah, we spoke about how Hashem uses tzara’as as a
punishment, while at the same time, uses it to express his love. This week’s parshah
shows this same concept much clearer.

In Perek 14 Pasuk 34, it says, “כִּי תָבֹאוּ אֶל אֶרֶץ
כְּנַעַן אֲשֶׁר אֲנִי נֹתֵן לָכֶם לַאֲחֻזָּה וְנָתַתִּי נֶגַע צָרַעַת בְּבֵית
אֶרֶץ אֲחֻזַּתְכֶם” “When you come to the land of
Canaan, which I am giving you as a possession, and I place a lesion of tzara’as
upon a house in the land of your possession.” (Vayikra 14:34). We know from
last week’s parshah that tzara’as can appear on buildings, clothing, and a
person’s skin, but why is tzara’as appearing on your house directly connected to
coming to Eretz Yisrael? And why is there no connection between Eretz Yisrael
and tzara’as appearing on clothing or skin?

The Paneach Raza gives a very simple explanation.
He says that in the desert, they did not have real houses and as such, they did
not have tzara’as on those “buildings.” Only when they entered Eretz Yisrael
did this concept begin.

Rashi gives a different explanation. He says
that when Bnei Yisrael were coming into Eretz Yisrael, the goyim who were
residing there hid their most prized possessions in the walls of their houses.
The only way you could find these treasures was if you broke down the walls. So
when the tzara’as appeared on the walls and they had to be removed, this ended
up revealing the treasure! What was seemingly a punishment turned into a great
reward! The owner of the house could have ignored the signs and just let the
tzara’as stay on his house, but instead, he listened to the Torah, did teshuvah
for his sin, and ended up getting a reward.

So we now understand why tzara’as
appears on buildings and the reason for it appearing on skin is obvious, but what
is the benefit of having tzara’as appear on clothing? The Paneach Raza and the
Chizkuni explain that when Bnei Yisrael defeated the nations in the land, the
nations left their clothing behind among their possessions. Some of this
clothing had been used in the service of Avoda Zara that renders it completely
forbidden to all forms of benefit. But how were Bnei Yisrael to know which
clothing had been used for Avoda Zara and which hadn’t? Hashem made it that
tzara’as appeared on the clothing, which forced them to be destroyed, thereby
solving the problem. Once again, we have another example of Hashem using tzara’as
in order to do good for us just as we saw in last week’s parshah. With all the
fear and embarrassment that the mention of tzara’as brings up, it is important
to realize how all that Hashem gives us is for our benefit, in more ways than
one.

Shabbat
Shalom!

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